I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire
by Publik Occurrences
Summary: Nora finds herself in Diamond City, with the only person that doesn't try to avoid her trying to tag along on her adventures. Piper Wright, the reporter. And maybe it's not that bad. AU where Nate and Nora are not married.
1. Not My Husband

"Do you miss your husband?"

It was a weird question to start on, Nora had to give Piper that. She was different than most of the press Nora had to deal with when she was a lawyer, that was for sure. The press always wanted to barge in on her cases, leak information to the public, with no real concern for those involved in the cases themselves. Piper, she was different. She had a different air about her. When they first met, she was yelling at the mayor. That seemed like a normal thing for the press to do, if Nora was being honest, but she'd supported Piper, supported the freedom of the press. And reading 'The Synthetic Truth' really had Nora agreeing with Piper. The Commonwealth did have the right to know. People were being kidnapped left, right and centre. Piper was doing a better job than more reporters Nora had met. The fact that she didn't ask about the vault like everyone did when they first caught sight of the blue body-hugging suit did was something Nora couldn't say she would have expected, not when Piper asked to write 'A View from the Vault'.

"Husband?" Nora asked, leaning back into Piper's sofa, raising an eyebrow at Piper questionably, prompting the reporter to go on.

"Yeah, your husband." Piper motioned to Nora's ring, tilting her head. "I'm a reporter, I notice things." Nora followed her gaze to the ring on her left hand, gleaming as the light hit the ring at just the right angle. She hadn't really remembered when she put it on, but being 235 years old would do that to you.

"Oh. Oh, Nate wasn't my husband." Nora looked back at Piper, watching as the woman sat up straighter on the chair, ever ready to listen. "Nate was a client. I was a lawyer, before the war. Uh, I helped people who were done wrong by others." Nora trailed off, realising the Commonwealth wouldn't have lawyers any more, hell, they didn't even have laws any more.

"Like you did today? Killed those raiders for Abernathy?" Piper asked innocently, jotting down notes in her book. She could write a book on Nora's stories she'd heard already, just from what she had told Moe, how the world was different before, how Diamond City was a respectable ball park where the Red Sox didn't beat people to death for sport like Moe had told everyone.

"Not quite. Instead of killing the wrong-doers, I'd help both parties agree on a reparation price. Like, they killed one of their Brahmins, they'd pay 1000 caps." At Piper's nod, Nora carried on. "I was in the middle of fighting his case, his wife was killed in a hit and run, back when the cars were running and not littering the streets. I was at his house gathering information when the warnings went off. He had Vault clearance. I didn't. He grabbed his son and put the ring on my finger, telling me to follow him. He ran with his son all the way to the vault, me trailing behind. I would have been killed in the blast, but he told me he'd explain later. Only, there was no later, he was killed, his son taken. I, I want to find his son, but I don't know how much time has passed. I don't know when I was woken up. To me, all these things, running to the vault, Nate's death, waking up, you, it all happened today to me. It's so much. A few hours ago, I watched Nate die, a few hours before that, I was driving up to Sanctuary Hills to talk to him. It's all so much. But they're together now, in a better place."

"Blue…" Piper pushed her pen back into her glove, leaning out of the chair she'd dragged over to her sofa, allowing the tired and weary vault dweller to rest on a more comfortable surface, resting her hand on Nora's knee, head tilted and eyebrows furrowed in sympathy.

"Part of me wants to find Shaun, y'know, because without his father, I wouldn't be here, I owe that to Nate, but, like, part of me thinks he won't even be alive. He could have been taken at any time in the last 2 centuries. Who knows if he's still alive." Nora leant back, feeling the warmth spread through her knee as the heat from Piper's hand spread through her vault suit, calming her down.

"If he's alive, you'll find him, Blue. If anyone can, you will." Piper dropped her notebook onto the table next to her, all while keeping her other hand on Nora's knee, smiling slightly at the vault dweller.

"You've known me all of 10 minutes, Piper." Nora cracked a smile, mock rolling her eyes at the woman.

"Hey, I'm a damn good reporter, I can read people." Piper laughed, opting to remove her hand from Nora's knee to poke her in jest.

"You remind me of this girl I dated once. Facially and personality-wise. Harper. Hell, I said once, I dated her _yesterday_. Look at me, understanding the passage of time." Nora laughed at herself as Piper extracted herself from the chair and picked up her notepad, jotting down a few final notes as she listened to Nora ramble.

"Oh yeah? Was this Harper a badass journalist fighting for survival every day?" Piper asked, tucking her notepad into the pocket of her red trench coat.

"Well she was a reporter, but she didn't fight for survival. At least not like you do, only to survive on the job."

"She sounds like a riot. Go on, I've got to write this up into a story worthy of our hero from underground. Go explain to Moe how the players didn't use the gloves to suffocate each other in fights to the death again."

"Paint a good picture of me, Red." Nora laughed, swinging open Piper's door and leaving before the reporter could question her again.

"I will d- Wait, ' _Red_ '?"

* * *

 _View from the Vault by Piper Wright_

 _Whenever I take a walk through Diamond City, there are so many things people tell me to be grateful for. Purified water, working lights, electricity, security. True, what we have would have been unthinkable even a few decades ago. But it's easy to forget that, even after all the progress we have made, we are still living in the shadow of the world that was. A world before the threat of radiation. Before the Super Mutant and the Feral Ghoul and the synth._

 _So, as fortune often has it, I crossed paths with her. Vault Dweller. A person who is experiencing the Commonwealth for the first time. What would her fresh set of eyes say about how far we've come? Is Diamond City the "Great, Green Jewel" we have always claimed it to be?_

 _Before we begin to answer that question, we have to know who she is. Where she comes from. To my surprise, she did not have much to say about her life in the Vault at all. Because she spent all that time staring at a piece of frozen glass. Every day. For over two centuries. That's right, she isn't just a Vault Dweller, she's an original Vault Dweller. She spent her entire time on the inside cryogenically suspended._

 _So what does Nora have to say about seeing Diamond City for the first time?_

 _"Honestly, seeing everyone surviving out here? Rebuilding the world? It gives me hope."_

 _Hope. When was the last time someone in our city talked about hope who wasn't some politician fishing for points in the next election, making empty promises at the Wall? But our outsider hasn't let the cynicism of our strange world get the better of her._

 _This is all the more remarkable because of the reason Nora came to the Commonwealth. You see, Nora had a friend. A friend who had a son. Shaun. And even though they were in the relative safety of a Vault, someone broke in, and took Shaun from his father, and now the friend, nay, an acquaintance, is now risking everything - wandering through this strange and unfriendly world of ours - in order to save Shaun from his kidnappers. This all happened today for her. The bombs, the killing of her friend, the kidnapping of his son, Diamond City. This happened today. And she still feels hope at seeing this place. And that is refreshing. Hope. Even after kidnappings and killings._

 _We all know the rumors and whispers that surround every missing person in Diamond City. The guilty looks we pass to mourning family members as we "thank the Wall that, this time, it wasn't us." You can end up dead in the Commonwealth for a million reasons. Why spend our time worrying about kidnappings?_

 _Why, indeed._

 _It's easy for us to be cynical about the missing. We have spent so long knowing the Institute is out there, but knowing so little about them. They are not the only ones responsible for kidnappings, but the fact that they sometimes are, and the fact that we have been so powerless to stop them when they do, causes us to treat all victims of kidnappings as if they are a lost cause._

 _But the people left behind, those loved ones, friends, and neighbors who may never see the faces of those taken from them again, they do not have the luxury of being able to just look away. They have to carry that loss with them, even if everyone else tells them to move on and forget._

 _"You can only take it one day at a time." Nora said. "Just keep going. That's all anyone can do."_

 _And that's coming from someone who remembers the first bombs dropping. To her, they dropped today. If she can take the days as they come, so can we._

 _She's the sole survivor, but together, we can all be survivors._

 _Every one of us._


	2. Noodles and Slog

**I had some kind words from some kind people today after those reviews, and you're right, I'm not going to let them get to me, they don't deserve the tie of day, so here, an update.**

* * *

"Blue?" Nora dropped her spoon into the bowl of noodles in front of her, splashing the warm liquid over the counter of the noodle stand. Piper was with her in less than a second, grabbing a cloth and wiping at the counter, a small laugh escaping her lips as she wiped. Nora hadn't seen Piper in just over a week, maybe two, it was hard for her to keep count without a phone or a watch, the days just seemed to spiral by. Nora had left not long after _The View from the Vault_ came out, opting to shy away from Fenway- Diamond City for a while, to instead try and focus on finding others out there, others than can help.

She'd found help, a place called The Slog. Ghouls who had their own farm running, farming tarberry in an old swimming pool. She'd been able to talk to some of them, Holly and Deirdre especially, about times before the war, and after. Nora had so many question, and the ghouls had no problems answering them. They could imagine what it was like for Nora, being awake in one century, then being awake in other. Except, they lived those 200 years that she passed away in less than a breath. They knew life before the war, after the war, and into the present, but Nora only knew before the war and the present. Noting made sense any more.

She'd tried to pay a traveling salesman, Trashcan Carla, in notes, but the woman laughed at her and told her she better give her some caps or she wouldn't give her the coat. Nora couldn't believe they used Nuka Cola caps as currency, suddenly all of the money in her pockets was worth nothing. All the money she'd grabbed on her way across the wasteland. Worthless.

So she'd stayed at The Slog for a few days, traded some of the items she'd scavenged from her walk for clothing, leaving her now with a heavy brown trench coat thrown over her vault suit. The ghouls had been so nice to her, it was hard to come across a few feral ghouls on her journey back, killing them before they attacked her. Now she had a hefty bag full of basic food supplies and caps, generously given to her after she snuck into a toy factory, retrieving one of her childhood toys for one of the ghouls, as well as the caps given to her after she helped erect a radio tower to call for other ghouls to go to The Slog, where they could help out and work. When a steady stream of ghouls were coming in to help out, constructing walls and lights and turrets, Nora took her leave, heading back to Diamond City.

She'd wanted to explore the wasteland, see what had changed, but even the small amount of horror's she'd seen in that one journey were enough to drive her back to Diamond City. So that's where she found herself, spoon submerged in noodles, Piper cleaning up her mess, and a few residents looking her way. Whispering.

"Thought you'd done a runner. My article wasn't that bad, was it?" Piper slid onto the stool next to her, leaning her head on her hand, resting by her elbow on the counter. Nora blinked a few times, clearing her mind and trying to ignore the whispers and pointing.

"What? No, god no. It was amazing. I just, I had to leave. This isn't my world." Nora pushed her bowl away from her food forgotten as she watched Piper's features warp and change into a frown. She didn't want pity, she wanted understanding. She was not meant to be alive. She was meant to be just another skeleton in a car on its way out of Sanctuary. Dead in 2077. Not alive and still wondering the wasteland 200 years later, living someone else's life. She'd felt most terrible when she traded Nate's rings for caps at a Red Rocket. They weren't hers to give away, then again, was anything anyone's any more.

"Blue, this is as much your world as it is mine." Piper laid a hand on Nora's shaking one, small, warm fingers wrapping around Nora's own, cold in Piper's hand, reminiscent of the 200 years she'd spent cryogenically frozen underground.

"You've lived this world your whole life, Piper. I've been here a few weeks." Nora left her hand in Piper's grasp, relishing the heat given off by the shorter woman. The coat did little for her hands, leaving them to the elements, often wrapped around a cold metal gun, her fingers freezing through the night as she found an old mattress to collapse onto to spend the night.

"And now you get to live your life here too. Look Blue, I meant what I said. If you want to go off travelling, it's your world, but, I will come with you if you want company. Or a tour guide. Or a proof reader. I'm good at all those three things." Piper reached into her pocket with her spare hand and pulled out a few caps, dropping them onto the table, quickly pulling Nora away with her as she stood up, leading her by the hand back to the Publik Occurrences building. "But first, you're going to have a good night's sleep. C'mon Blue."


End file.
